Live on £4000 for a year - Part 2

Pirategirl

nykmedia wrote: »

"The cost of 'normal' living is driving people out of the 'norm' and into new territories in order to avoid abject poverty. There is, of course, an easy way around this - study hard, get a good job, but a house and pay off your mortgage as soon as possible, making sure you have safely tucked away a couple of £million to last you throughout your possible 25 years + of retirement, when the government may no longer afford to support all the pensioners. That's fine if you are still young enough and actually have a mortgage..."

Just read NYK's epic post...and the above bit hit a nerve. Competely agree with everything that was said... but if you are someone like me who has confidence/various other 'self' issues then the 'get a good job' just seems to be impossible. To get the job i'm in my doctor prescribed beta blockers - I couldnt even hand in the application myself and was in floods of tears for 2 weeks until the interview. Took my beta blockers all the while - on the morning of the interview I looked so awful that my dad gave me a tot of whiskey (yuk). Needless to say I dont remember the interview at all, and cried every morning before work for 6 months. Always nice!

I know im lucky to have a job - its a job, its reasonably secure, and its over the minimum wage, but its nowhere near the 'good job' status that is needed for me to be able to support myself into retirement. The idea of going for a job which would require me to do presentations etc etc etc just to get thru the interview fills me with dread.

Anyway..what I was trying to put across, is that there must be many others who feel like I do - quite intelligent (lol) but just for whatever reason not able to reach their potential. It's awful knowing you could be doing so much better.

Sorry....am sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with this thread, or any thread lol.. I just feel like such a spanner. People dont seem to understand that yes, I probably could do this job or that job, but that no, i'm not going to go for it. Makes me feel like a complete faliure! Also very frustrating.

*sigh* I'll shut up now. Sorry for letting all that out, and hope that no one takes it that I was 'having a go' at NYK cos I truly am not! (look, now the paranoia kicks in, lol).

Frugaldom

Pirategirl, your posting is entirely relevant and I take no offence, whatsoever, at your extremely accurate interpretation. I think what you have described is a very, very, very, very, very, very common scenario, so dry your tears and settle happily for the fact that it does NOT have to be that way. Part of my epic posting had the words, "But I digress..." That's because there are other options. Living on 4k was mine.

No offence meant to ANYONE, honestly

Marru

HELLO JANEY!!! Glad to have you back. How on earth did you manage to drive all that distance with that little money? Please let me know as in the end of June I shall be driving Somerset - London - Windermere - London - Somerset in one weekend and all the petrol saving tips graefully received.

I had missed that Nyk's post - how on earth did I do that I can't tell but have found it now. Will read it when DD is not here harrassing my rats. Pirategirl - will send you PM later when have a moment of peace and quiet (midnight?).

NSD today as can't be bothered venturing out today. I have enough stuff in the cupboards to make veggie pasta, DD's second favourite meal, and that should be enough for lunch and supper.

Need to go now as DD has let rats loose. STOP THAT RAT!!!

Frugaldom

Hi Janey, welcome back and hope you enjoyed your holiday. Bad news about the shower gel, tho! How much? :eek: Well done with the frugal driving!

I should have been at the Homebuilding and Renovations show in Glasgow this weekend! I did try to organise the trip, as I had 4 free tickets, but 3 of the 4 couldn't make it this weekend (they weren't really interested in it, to be honest). I'm also thinking along the same lines for the paddle steamer trip - I'd be as well forgetting that. Don't think friend can make it that weekend, HS won't go and it's same date as a meeting I should be attending, according to the note I got through the door These are some of the usual reasons I don't spend much on entertainment, socialising, holidays or day trips - the main one being that I won't go anywhere on my own. (I'm a bit of a wimp that way! )

I did a list of all the tins, jars, packets, household and toiletry things I would need to last to the end of the year and soon realised that there is no way I could store all of that, let alone manage to cart it all back from Mr T's in one go. Toilet rolls alone would just about fill a small shed and I'm not planning on storing them in my greenhouse! :rotfl:I did try to count it all up and it would amount to a maximum of £150, so that would leave me about £370 for meat, fish, dairy, bread and Christmas. £10 per week and £50 extra for Christmas/New year, which does sound entirely do-able to me.

Still dry here, but quite overcast and looking like the rain isn't too far from us. I've just finished some printing I had to do and now, I guess, I'll go try hanging out more washing to see if it dries before the weather changes. DS has arrived home, so dinner will be expected at a sensible hour.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend

Edited in: Further to my 'epic post', part of it was meant to be tongue in cheek, especially the part about the allegedly 'easy option'.

MrDT

Why is it that when I really fancied a night out last weekend nobody was up for it, but this week when I can't really be bothered everyone's trying to drag me out? :mad: In my effort to put off making a real decision I've decided to do some number crunching. Procrastination is the moneysavers friend at times lol!

We're officially on day 138 of 366 today, 37.7% of the way through, 228 days remaining.

I personally joined this challenge on the 1st of April and decided to aim for a £3000 limit between then and December 31st - this is pretty much equivalent to starting Jan 1st with a 4k target (actual limit for that target would be £3005.46, £3000 is a nicer 'numerical ocd friendly' target lol). So I'm actually only on day 47 of 275, and 17.1% of the way through.

So far I have spent £675.36, or 22.5% of my 3k allowance, overbudget by a fair bit. Here's what it has been spent on so far:

Trips/Holidays - £386.21 - 57.2% :eek:
Nights Out - £96.60 - 14.3%
Groceries - £55.88 - 8.3%
Electric - £50.00 - 7.4%
TV License - £23.22 - 3.4%
Work Lunch/Drink/Snack - £19.17 - 2.8%
Misc - £11.66 - 1.7%
Charity - £10.00 - 1.5%
Gifts - £9.99 - 1.5%
Toiletries - £7.53 - 1.1%
Household - £5.10 - 0.8%

Take the holiday that I'm yet to take (~£285 paid in full ready for the summer) out the equation and I think I'm actually doing quite well Quite alarming that my biggest areas of expenditure are Holidays and Nights Out though I'm actually quite pleased that it's not Electric or something like that though as that would really depress me!

I've taken a leaf out of nyk's book and come up with a total budget for each category for the whole nine months, it's subject to change but here's my first go:

Trips/Holidays - budget £1000, spent £386.21, remaining £613.79.
Nights Out - budget £450, spent £96.60, remaining £353.40.
Groceries - budget £535, spent £55.88, remaining £479.12.
Electric - budget £400, spent £50.00, remaining £350.00.
TV License - budget £104.49, spent £23.22, remaining £81.27.
Work Lunch/Drink/Snack - budget £50, spent £19.17, remaining £30.83.
Misc - budget £50, spent £11.66, remaining £38.34.
Charity - budget £50, spent £10.00, remaining £40.00.
Gifts - budget £350, spent £9.99, remaining £340.01.
Toiletries - budget £40, spent £7.53, remaining £32.47.
Household - budget £30, spent £5.10, remaining £24.90.

It looks doable

So, 'nights out' budget has £353.40 left in there, I go out on the town on average once every three weeks, and say I'll aim to spend between £30 and £40 each time - that's about 10 nights out between now and the end of the year (not counting wakestock, creamfields etc - they're accounted for under trips/holidays)... I *could* go out tonight, or I could leave it for another time when I really feel like a good night out.

Ho hum, I should have met the guys eleven minutes ago if I were going out (and not been for a shave yet!), looks like procrastination has made my decision for me!! :rotfl:


edit: i might go catch them up in the pub later

Pirategirl

NYK - thank you, I dont feel quite such a spanner about myself now! Am going to PM you.
Feeling a bit tired and emotional, so will leave it there for tonight, have a great night everyone, whatever you are doing. Mr DT - if you go to the pub, have one for me wont you!?!!

Take care all

andromache_2

Have fun in the pub MrDT :beer:

I just booked another set of flights for the summer I'd never have been able to afford this if it hadn't been for this challenge so thanks guys

Janey51

Morning frugallers.
Still working my way through the posts put on while I was away.
My frugal driving on holiday was accomplished by:

Me driving all the time. DH has a big foot and his brain is hardwired to drive at 80mph+ on a motorway :eek: I drive everyone else nuts by rarely going above 60 and sitting in the inside lane along with all the other boring drivers...are they all MSEers:D
Our car is a diesel and on a long run we seem to be getting about 50-55m/gallon sometimes up to 60 . It also seems to have a big tank (being a woman, haven't read the instruction manual yet)
Bought diesel at home (122p/L) before we went and sussed out cheapest garage down South (119.8p/L) before we came back. We were on the orange for the last bit home and DH was panicking but no way was I paying Motorway prices :rotfl:
Luckily for us, we had no hold ups in the usual places on the M5/M6.

Joining the National Trust before going was a good move (via Quidco for £20 cashback + 3 months free for paying by DD). We stopped off on the way down and visited a place which would have cost £7.30 each and we visited 3 other NT properties while we were in Devon for about the same price so that would have been over £56 and the annual membership was £37 after discounts. And we can still use it until May 2009. So we will make a concerted effort to visit more NT places (including Scotland of course)
Nyk your post about oil costs was so true. When we moved into this house in 1998, oil was 19p a litre and now its over 54p Its nearly trebled but our wages haven't.
We have had our log burner for 3 winters now and we love it but we are thinking about getting a bigger one as we have sourced more places for free wood and we sometimes have to use a gas heater(Calor) in really cold weather to boost teh heat in the living room. Calor has gone up by £2 a cylinder since last year.
We got our present logburner from Ebay and I have seen others for about £320. That is what we paid for 3 tons of logs last year so it cancels the cost of the logburner.
We have already started re-stocking the new woodshed in preparation for next winter.
Us frugallers always have to plan ahead.:T

I checked the expiry dates of flour while I was shopping yesterday and bought some to stash away which is OK until May 2009 in case the price jumps again. I was getting some funny looks as I was down on my hands and knees dragging packets from the back of the shelf and avidly reading the small print
My freezer is now well stocked with reduced meat,cheese,milk and loaves from the reduced things I manage to grab on my early morning forays into the local Co-op.

Its a glorious day here after a frosty night so I'm off to do some gardening.
Have a great frugal Sunday everyone.

mumzyof2

Good Morning all, sorry i have been away,, i have been busy partying Dont know what i have spent but i will add it all up later, having a lazy day today, my friend coming over later for a cuppa.
Hope everyone is ok

lyndasharp

Hi everyone! I've not been keeping up to date with this thread over the last couple of weeks, life's just been too hectic, so apologies for all the news I've missed! Good news from me is my contract extension is confirmed, so I'm employed until the end of August. I spent the first few days of my new contract rewriting the budget so that there's now money to pay me until Christmas, fingers crossed that will be approved next week. Things with the internet date I posted about a few weeks ago didn't work out, so I went on a date on Friday, and got on really well with the guy I met. Saw him again Saturday as well, so looking good so far! This dating thing is quite expensive though, must try and avoid taxis as they cost a fortune! Went over budget for April, which didn't surprise me, and May looks like it's going to be close... think I'll be suggesting picnics and walks in the countryside instead of pubs and gigs!